We’re going about this all wrong, people. This isn’t about a man and his personal failings.

It’s about a man and his wandering eye.

Louisville AD Tom Jurich, left, and coach Bobby Petrino (AP Photo)

It’s about a man who was happy at Louisville until Auburn came calling. Who was happy again with Louisville when that serendipitous chance at Auburn turned into an exposed coup and he reaffirmed his love for all things Cardinals.

Who couldn’t get out of Louisville fast enough when the NFL came calling, and couldn’t leave the NFL soon enough — before the end of his first season — when the Arkansas job was dangled in front of him. Who, after some personal failings at Arkansas, found a way back to college football at Western Kentucky, and on the day he was hired, said this:

“I hope it can be as long as possible.”

It lasted all of one year before Louisville, in a move that can only be seen as confounding as it is plain bat crazy, decided to rehire the man who broke its heart and left a mess behind for everyone to clean up.

That, everyone, is the problem — not some “personal failing.”

Bobby Petrino has a track record, a broken and bruised road that has played out over and over — yet is constantly overlooked because the man can flat out coach football. If you ever had any question about this Pollyanna nonsense of “molding young men” and coaching college football, I give you the University of Louisville.

The administration at Louisville — from the president, to the board of trustees to the athletic director — just stood on the mountaintop and screamed for the world to hear: winning supersedes all.

Like the jilted lover who can’t seem to walk away, Louisville is back for Round 2 of Guess When Petrino Leaves. And, of course, guess how long it takes to recover.

Any other explanation of bringing Napoleon back for another run at the empire is as disingenuous as Petrino himself.

You’d have thought Louisville would have learned from the last time Petrino was caught doing what Petrino does best: look for other jobs. Here’s a guy who tried to stick it to Louisville, got caught, was given a second chance, and did it again.

Worse than that, he left the program in shambles, and the Louisville brass then decided to hand off the house of cards — a program that just won a BCS bowl but was inundated with internal problems (drug use, zero discipline) — to one of the few good men in the business.

Steve Kragthorpe had 15 victories in three seasons, and ran off nearly double that in players from a program that was imploding when he arrived. He cleaned up the mess but didn’t win, and Charlie Strong arrived and recruited well and changed the culture from finding ways to lose to imposing your will to win.

So what does Louisville do when Strong leaves for the biggest job in the game? It hires the very guy who put them in the hole Kragthorpe and Strong dug out of in the first place. The same guy who, after he wins big — you better believe he will — will once again look for a bigger, better job.

He left Louisville in a mess. He left the Atlanta Flacons in a mess. We’ve yet to see what has/will happen at his last stop Western Kentucky, but there’s little doubt what will happen in Round 2 at Louisville.

Some team, at some point, will want Petrino again. More than likely, it will be a team from the SEC, a meatgrinder league where Petrino has worked his magic.

Before his personal failing at Arkansas led to his dismissal, Petrino had Arkansas in the top 5 and poised for a run at the national title. Months after he was fired, a team that had the talent and confidence to win it all imploded from within and won four games.

A year later, Arkansas hired Bret Bielema, and a man who had led Wisconsin to three straight Rose Bowls but couldn’t even muster one measly victory in the SEC with the dysfunctional roster he inherited from Petrino.

And this is what Louisville has signed on for. Again.

This is what Louisville believes will strengthen its standing when it arrives in the ACC next fall. This is what Louisville believes is the best possible move to secure the future of its football program.

That’s an 18-wheeler full of trust and loyalty for a coach who has earned neither in a fluid and fractured coaching career. That’s the most disheartening part of this whole, twisted homecoming.